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Thread: Fraud Upon the FISA Court Confirmed

  1. #541
    A string of emails quietly requested by House Republicans for declassification by President Trump may be the smoking gun that the FBI and DOJ committed egregious abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), according to The Hill's John Solomon.

    The email exchanges - kept from Congressional investigators for over two years, "included then-FBI Director James Comey, key FBI investigators in the Russia probe and lawyers in the DOJ’s national security division," according to the report - and took place in early to mid-October of 2016, prior to the FBI successfully securing a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
    The email exchanges show the FBI was aware — before it secured the now-infamous warrant — that there were intelligence community concerns about the reliability of the main evidence used to support it: the Christopher Steele dossier.
    The exchanges also indicate FBI officials were aware that Steele, the former MI6 British intelligence operative then working as a confidential human source for the bureau, had contacts with news media reporters before the FISA warrant was secured. -The Hill
    Two weeks after the FBI secured the FISA warrant using the Steele Dossier, Steele was fired by the FBI on November 1, 2016 for inappropriate communications with the news media.
    Also withheld from both Congress and the general public until months later is the fact that Steele had been paid by Fusion GPS - an opposition research firm hired by Hillary Clinton and the DNC to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. Moreover, Steele absolutely hated Donald Trump.
    And as Solomon notes; "If the FBI knew of his media contacts and the concerns about the reliability of his dossier before seeking the warrant, it would constitute a serious breach of FISA regulations and the trust that the FISA court places in the FBI."
    That’s because the FBI has an obligation to certify to the court before it approves FISA warrants that its evidence is verified, and to alert the judges to any flaws in its evidence or information that suggest the target might be innocent. -The Hill
    The FBI, however, went to extreme lengths to convince the FISA judge that Steele ("Source #1"), was reliable when they could not verify the unsubstantiated claims in his dossier - while also having to explain why they still trusted his information after having terminated Steele's contract over inappropriate disclosures he made to the media.
    "Not withstanding Source1's reason for conducting the research into Candidate1's ties to Russia, based on Source1's previous reporting history with the FBI, whereby Source1 provided reliable information to the FBI, the FBI believes Source 1s reporting herein to be credible"
    On top of that, Bill Priestap told Congress that corroboration of the dossier was in its "infancy" when FISAs were being granted. An FBI unit found dossier was only "minimally" corroborated.
    — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 22, 2018
    Of course, none of this mattered to the FBI - which painted Carter Page in the most criminal light possible, as intended, in order to convince the FISA judge to grant the warrant.In order to reinforce their argument, the FBI presented various claims from the dossier as facts, such as "The FBI learned that Page met with at least two Russian officials" - when in fact that was simply another unverified claim from the dossier.
    It flat out accuses Page of being a Russian spy who was recruited by the Kremlin, which sought to "undermine and influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in violation of U.S. criminal law," the application reads.
    ALERT: The declassified FBI warrant application attests to secret FISA court that "THE FBI LEARNED that Page met with at least two Russian officials during the trip,"as if FBI learned this independently,when in fact it's clear it relied on Clinton-paid dossier for the information
    — Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) July 22, 2018
    FBI represented to a federal judge that investigators knew for certain that Carter Page met w/ Igor Sechin and Diveykin. Except, the FISA app acknowledges this intel came from Steele dossier. And FBI has acknowledged dossier was not verifieid. https://t.co/7ZstgwlVOh pic.twitter.com/NDYvBIhXB0
    — Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) July 21, 2018
    Another approach used to beef up the FISA application's curb appeal was circular evidence, via the inclusion of a letter from Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (NV) to former FBI Director James Comey, citing information Reid got from John Brennan, which was in turn from the Clinton-funded dossier.
    BREAKING: FBI's FISA warrant actually cites as "evidence" to spy on Carter Page/Trump campaign "Senate Minority Leader" Harry Reid's 2016 letter to Comey citing information he got from John Brennan who got it from the Clinton dossier -- talk about circular evidence!
    — Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) July 22, 2018
    Meanwhile - current and former members of the US intelligence community continue to hinge their theories of Trump-Russia collusion on the Steele Dossier, despite Comey admitting that it was "salacious" and "unverified" during sworn testimony.
    Most intelligence officials, such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, have embraced the concerns laid out in the Steele dossier of possible — but still unproven — collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
    Yet, 10 months after the probe started and a month after Robert Mueller was named special counsel in the Russia probe, Comey cast doubt on the the Steele dossier, calling it “unverified” and “salacious” in sworn testimony before Congress.
    Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page further corroborated Comey’s concerns in recent testimony before House lawmakers, revealing that the FBI had not corroborated the collusion charges by May 2017, despite nine months of exhaustive counterintelligence investigation. -The Hill
    Congressional investigators now want to question Comey about the October email string and whether it contributed to his assessment. According to Solomon, the newly requested email chain "provides the most direct evidence that the bureau, and possibly the DOJ, had reasons to doubt the Steele dossier before the FISA warrant was secured."
    "If these documents are released, the American public will have clear and convincing evidence to see the FISA warrant that escalated the Russia probe just before Election Day was flawed and the judges [were] misled," one source told Solomon.
    What's more, House GOP investigators now have a growing pile of evidence that some of the information inserted into a fourth and final application for the FISA - signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, was suspect - as evidence by hints by House Intelligence Committee member Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Fox News's Sean Hannity TV show November 20. Nunes said that the declassification of the requested documents will "give finality to everyone who wants to know what their government did to a political campaign."
    As Solomon bluntly puts it:
    The bureau, under a Democratic-controlled Justice Department, sought a warrant to spy on the duly nominated GOP candidate for president in the final weeks of the 2016 election, based on evidence that was generated under a contract paid by his political opponent.
    That evidence, the Steele dossier, was not fully vetted by the bureau and was deemed unverified months after the warrant was issued.
    At least one news article was used in the FISA warrant to bolster the dossier as independent corroboration when, it fact, it was traced to a news organization that had been in contact with Steele, creating a high likelihood it was circular intelligence reporting.
    And the entire warrant, the FBI’s own document shows, was being rushed to approval by two agents who hated Trump and stated in their own texts that they wanted to “stop” the Republican from becoming president.
    No wonder Comey wanted a public testimony - where he wouldn't have to discuss any of this.


    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...cation-solomon
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

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  3. #542
    Speaking to the press outside of the proceedings, House Republicans indicated to reporters that they were unhappy with Comey's answers and may attempt to bring him back another day.
    After the questioning was underway, some Republicans signaled they were unhappy with Comey’s level of cooperation. California Rep. Darrell Issa said Comey had two lawyers in the room, his personal lawyer and a lawyer from the Justice Department. He said the department lawyer repeatedly instructed Comey not to answer “a great many questions that are clearly items at the core of our investigation.”
    Issa suggested the committee might bring Comey back because he wasn’t answering questions. Two other Republicans, Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, also suggested they might need a second session with Comey if they didn’t finish their interview by a late afternoon deadline. -AP


    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...door-testimony
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  4. #543
    Bring Comey and his personal lairyer back in. Tell the Justice Department attorney that he wasn't invited and to take a hike.

  5. #544
    Sentencing for Gen. Mike Flynn is less than two weeks away but tempers have been brewing for a year by the Flynn family who has largely remained silent, waiting for sentencing.
    Do not expect that silence to continue.
    And on Friday, Joespeh Flynn took Washington Post ‘columnist’ and Deep-State robot David Ignatius to the woodshed.

    Expect Joesph Flynn, brother of Mike Flynn, and the entire Flynn clan to become much more vocal in the coming months.
    That includes Mike Flynn.
    And expect this to get messy.

    David Ignatius, another smug elitist leftie journo from WAPO has the audacity to condescendingly opine on @GenFlynn as if he knows him personally. Guess what, @IgnatiusPost.he doesn't know you and could give two $#@!s about your opinion. What we do know is that you are
    — Joseph J. Flynn ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@JosephJFlynn1) December 7, 2018
    an accomplice to a crime, that of unmasking and leaking the private comms of a US citizen. There is ample evidence that you were willfully involved in this crime along with your friends in the Obama Admin ( RIce, Brennan, Clapper and others). Call it journalism,? We call
    — Joseph J. Flynn ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@JosephJFlynn1) December 7, 2018
    it sedition against a duly elected President and his incoming National Security Advisor. Never know when YOU may be called to testify under oath about who leaked this information.. don't underestimate the Shanty Irish, we have long memories….@BarbaraRedgate @realDonaldTrump
    — Joseph J. Flynn ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@JosephJFlynn1) December 7, 2018



    https://truepundit.com/flynn-drops-t...against-trump/
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  7. #545
    An investigation referred to Justice Department prosecutors by Special Counsel Robert Mueller earlier this year into possible criminal activity by Clinton-linked Washington insider Tony Podesta and former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig is heating up, according to a new report that underscores federal authorities' increasing enforcement of laws governing foreign business relationships.
    The inquiries center not only on Craig and Podesta -- a Democratic lobbyist and co-founder of the onetime lobbying powerhouse known as the Podesta Group -- but also on Vin Weber, a former GOP congressman from Minnesota.
    The probes had been quiet for months since Mueller referred them to authorities in New York City because they fell outside his mandate of determining whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia.
    But in a flurry of new activity, Justice Department prosecutors in the last several weeks have begun interviewing witnesses and contacting lawyers to schedule additional questioning related to the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs, people familiar with the inquiry anonymously told the Associated Press.

    More at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mue...into-high-gear
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  8. #546
    Former FBI Director James Comey said he will return for more questioning on Capitol Hill later this month, as President Trump ripped into him for apparently declining to answer certain questions on the advice of his attorneys during Friday’s closed-door session.
    Comey, who spent Friday testifying before House lawmakers, told reporters his return visit will likely come the “week after next.”

    More at: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jam...x-fbi-director
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  9. #547
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  10. #548
    https://twitter.com/filthy_liberals/...92036329975808

    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  11. #549
    Andrew McCabe - the FBI's former Deputy Director, advised then-national security adviser Michael Flynn that he wouldn't need a lawyer present during a January 24, 2017 White House interview with two FBI agents, according to the Washington Examiner, citing a sentencing memo filed Tuesday by Flynn's attorneys. During a phone call with Flynn, McCabe suggested that if anyone else was in the meeting, the FBI would have to escalate things to involve the Justice Department.

    Citing McCabe's account, the sentencing memo says that shortly after noon on Jan. 24 — the fourth day of the new Trump administration — McCabe called Flynn on a secure phone in Flynn's West Wing office. The two men discussed business briefly and then McCabe said that he "felt that we needed to have two of our agents sit down" with Flynn to discuss Flynn's talks with Russian officials during the presidential transition.
    McCabe, by his own account, urged Flynn to talk to the agents alone, without a lawyer present. "I explained that I thought the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation between [Flynn] and the agents only," McCabe wrote. "I further stated that if LTG Flynn wished to include anyone else in the meeting, like the White House counsel for instance, that I would need to involve the Department of Justice. [Flynn] stated that this would not be necessary and agreed to meet with the agents without any additional participants." -Washington Examiner
    One of the agents conducting the interview was disgraced counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, whose text messages to his FBI mistress revealed that he harbored extreme animus towards President Trump - and ostensibly those in his orbit, which would include Flynn.
    According to the so-called "302 report" - a document FBI agents use to summarize interviews, the two agents were in Flynn's office within two hours of the phone call with McCabe, and said he was "relaxed and jocular," offering the agents "a little tour" of his section of the White House.
    "The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview," reads Flynn's memo.
    Also contained within the 302 report is an admission that McCabe and other FBI officials"decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport."
    One has to wojnder if the FBI has been stalling on their investigation of McCabe's potential leak and coordinated "setup" with Strzok and Page in order to not interfere with their prosecution of Flynn? Twitter user and attorney @Techno_Fog and @TheLastRefuge2 (Conservative Treehouse) make some interesting points.
    AG Sessions on 02/18/2018

    "We’re going after this aggressively," Sessions said about the leak of the transcript of Flynn's call. "I am directing it personally... and we’re pursuing it aggressively."https://t.co/K7191tN5Is pic.twitter.com/tglelTd1Bi
    — Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) October 15, 2018
    The Day before interviewing @GenFlynn Lisa Page and Peter Strzok are nervous and talking about their pre-planning with Andrew McCabe.

    They were going to exploit their Flynn phone tap and the prior comments by VP-elect Mike Pence on 01/15. pic.twitter.com/uHN6qN3l8v
    — TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) December 5, 2018
    As Byron York of the Examiner notes - the FBI agents had already seen transcripts of Flynn's wiretapped conversations with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. "Before the interview, FBI officials had also decided that if 'Flynn said he did not remember something they knew he said, they would use the exact words Flynn used ... to try to refresh his recollection. If Flynn still would not confirm what he said ... they would not confront him or talk him through it," reads the 302 filing.
    That is all the sentencing document contains about the interview itself. In a footnote, Flynn's lawyers noted that the government did not object to the quotations from the FBI 302 report.
    In one striking detail, footnotes in the Flynn memo say the 302 report cited was dated Aug. 22, 2017 — nearly seven months after the Flynn interview. It is not clear why the report would be written so long after the interview itself.
    The brief excerpts from the 302 used in the Flynn defense memo will likely spur more requests from Congress to see the original FBI documents. Both House and Senate investigating committees have demanded that the Justice Department allow them to see the Flynn 302, but have so far been refused.
    In the memo, Flynn's lawyers say that he made a "serious error in judgment" in the interview. Citing Flynn's distinguished 30-plus year record of service in the U.S. Army, they ask the judge to go along with special counsel Robert Mueller's recommendation that Flynn be spared any time in prison. -Washington Examiner

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...terview-strzok
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  12. #550
    Robert Mueller’s special counsel’s office reviewed Peter Strzok’s text messages from during his tenure at the FBI, but those text messages are obviously not going to see the light of day.
    By some mechanical manipulation, the text messages for both Strzok and Page are gone, baby, gone, according to a new inspector general’s report. The Mueller team is specifically responsible for the scrubbing of the Strzok phone, while the explanation for the Page phone is a bit more muddied.
    I'm sure you're all super shocked to find out that Lisa Page's phone was also scrubbed pic.twitter.com/NWV9GQbBTc
    — Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) December 13, 2018


    More at: https://bigleaguepolitics.com/muelle...-iphone-clean/
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  13. #551
    U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered Mueller late Wednesday to turn over all of the government's documents and 'memoranda' related to Flynn's questioning; Kevin Corke reports from the White House.

    More at: https://news.yahoo.com/mueller-order...141915012.html
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  14. #552
    On Tuesday, attorneys for Michael Flynn filed a sentencing memorandum and letters of support for the former Army lieutenant general in federal court. The sentencing memorandum reveals for the first time concrete evidence that the FBI created multiple 302 interview summaries of Flynn’s questioning by now-former FBI agent Peter Strzok and a second unnamed agent, reported to be FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka.
    Further revelations may be forthcoming soon following an order entered late yesterday by presiding judge Emmet Sullivan, directing the special counsel’s office to file with the court any 302s or memorandum relevant to Flynn’s interview.


    While Flynn’s sentencing memorandum methodically laid out the case for a low-level sentence of one-year probation, footnote 23 dropped a bomb, revealing that the agents’ 302 summary of his interview was dated August 22, 2017. As others have already noted, the August 22, 2017 date is a “striking detail” because that puts the 302 report “nearly seven months after the Flynn interview.” When added to facts already known, this revelation takes on a much greater significance.
    First, text messages between Strzok and former FBI Attorney Lisa Page indicate that Strzok wrote his notes from the Flynn interview shortly after he questioned the national security advisor on January 24, 2017. Specifically, on February 14, 2017, Strzok texted Page, “Also, is Andy good with F 302?” Page responded, “Launch on f 302.” Given Strzok’s role in the questioning Flynn, the date (three weeks from the interview), the notation “F 302,” and Page’s position as special counsel to Andrew McCabe, it seems extremely likely that these text exchanges concerned a February 2017, 302 summary of the Flynn interview.
    Additionally, now that we know from the sentencing memorandum that the special counsel’s office has tendered a 302 interview summary dated August 22, 2017, we can deduce that an earlier 302 form existed from James Comey’s Friday testimony before the House judiciary and oversight committees.


    During the day-long questioning of the former FBI Director, Rep. Trey Gowdy asked Comey whether the agents who interviewed Flynn had indicated that Flynn did not intend to deceive them during the interview. After Comey replied “No,” Gowdy pushed him, asking “Have you ever testified differently?” Comey again responded, “No.”
    But when asked whether he recalled being asked that question doing an earlier House hearing, Comey countered: “No. I recall — I don’t remember what question I was asked. I recall saying the agents observed no indicia of deception, physical manifestations, shiftiness, that sort of thing.” (More on that testimony shortly.) This exchange then followed:
    Mr. Gowdy: “Who would you have gotten that from if you were not present for the interview?”
    Mr. Comey: “From someone at the FBI, who either spoke to — I don’t think I spoke to the interviewing agents but got the report from the interviewing agents.”


    Mr. Gowdy: “All right. So you would have, what, read the 302 or had a conversation with someone who read the 302?”
    Mr. Comey: “I don’t remember for sure. I think I may have done both, that is, read the 302 and then investigators directly. I just don’t remember that.”
    President Trump fired Comey on May 9, 2017, so the 302 of the Flynn interview Comey read must have been written before then. Why then was a new 302 drafted on August 22, 2017? And by whom?
    The timing of the re-write—shortly after then-FBI Agent Strzok was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team after his anti-Trump text messages came to light—raises the possibility that Mueller wanted to scrub the evidence of Strzok’s taint. Having the second agent involved in questioning Flynn draft a new 302 summary would eliminate attacks premised on Strzok’s bias against the president.


    But was that the only reason the FBI issued a new 302? Were there any differences in the versions?
    Congress has been trying to get to the bottom of this question for months upon months. In February, senators Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham requested the DOJ inspector general, Michael Horowitz, conduct a comprehensive review of potential misconduct in the Russia investigation and specifically asked Horowitz to answer these questions about the Flynn interview and the 302s:
    “Did the FBI agents document their interview with Lt. Gen. Flynn in one or more FD-302s? What were the FBI agents’ conclusions about Lt. Gen. Flynn’s truthfulness, as reflected in the FD-302s? Were the FD-302s ever edited? If so, by whom? At who’s direction? How many drafts were there? Are there material differences between the final draft and the initial draft(s) or the agent’s testimony about the interview?”
    Horowitz has yet to answer these questions, but the special counsel’s office now has federal judge Sullivan inquiring as well. Sullivan made history a decade ago when he ordered an independent investigation into “the systemic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence,” he discovered during the government’s prosecution of the now-deceased Ted Stevens, then the senior senator from Alaska. The DOJ’s misconduct in the Stevens’ case led Sullivan to enter a standing order in all criminal cases on his docket.
    The most recent iteration of Sullivan’s standing entered in the Flynn case required Mueller’s office to produce “any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.” The order further required the government to submit to the court any information “which is favorable to the defendant but which the government believes not to be material.”
    Flynn referenced some of these materials in his sentencing memorandum, specifically the FR-302 from August 22, 2017 and a memorandum apparently written by McCabe and dated January 24, 2017—the same day as Flynn’s interview. Now Sullivan wants to see those documents and ordered Mueller by Friday afternoon “to file on the docket FORTHWITH the cited Memorandum and FD-302.” Sullivan further ordered “the government to file on the docket any 302s or memoranda relevant to [Flynn’s interview.]”
    What motivated Sullivan is unclear, but his experience in the Stevens’ case was a likely trigger. In that case, the government withheld 302s, didn’t include exculpatory statements in the 302s, and did not create a 302 for an interview that “didn’t go very well,” from the prosecution’s standpoint. Sullivan likely wants to assure himself that the Flynn case isn’t a copycat of the political targeting of Stevens from a decade ago.
    Once the government dockets the evidence, Sullivan should be able to resolve two outstanding questions: First, what, if any, changes were made to the 302s? Second, did Strzok and his fellow FBI agent express a view on whether Flynn was lying?
    Here, we return to Comey’s testimony from Friday referenced above, that “the agents observed no indicia of deception, physical manifestations, shiftiness, that sort of thing.” Comey further explained, though, that his “recollection was [Flynn] was — the conclusion of the investigators was he was obviously lying, but they saw none of the normal common indicia of deception: that is, hesitancy to answer, shifting in seat, sweating, all the things that you might associate with someone who is conscious and manifesting that they are being — they’re telling falsehoods. There’s no doubt he was lying, but that those indicators weren’t there.”
    The earlier version(s) of the 302s will either support or contradict Comey’s testimony. Same with McCabe’s January 24, 2017 memorandum.

    More at: http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/13/...jor-bombshell/
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  16. #553
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  17. #554
    FBI Disobeys Judge; Submits Ham-Handed "302" Summary Of Flynn Interview From Six Months Later


    Judge Sullivan's demand for the 302 summary of Flynn's interview would have likely cleared things up. Unfortunately, the Department of Justice just submitted a "302" interview of Strzok's account of the Flynn interview - which was conducted six months after the fact.
    The FBI 302 of the interview with Strzok about the Flynn interview, however, explicitly references a 302 written up about the Flynn interview by a redacted official, who is likely Joe Pientka. DOJ did not include that 302 in today's filing.

    Where is the original Flynn 302? pic.twitter.com/yRlkqOWhWp
    — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 14, 2018
    In June, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) suggested in an interview with The Hill that the Flynn 302 reports had possibly been tampered with.
    Meadows, the leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and a close ally of President Trump's, said he and other lawmakers are finding evidence of possible tampering, an allegation he previously made at a House hearing where Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified.
    ...
    "I brought this up with the inspector general the other day. Some of those key witness will be asked to appear before House Oversight," he added.
    The question about the FBI interview reports, he said, was "were they changed to change the outcome of prosecution decisions. I think they might have." -The Hill
    BREAKING: IG Horowitz confirmed that he is investigating allegations that FBI officials "edited" agents' 302 summary reports of interviews with witnesses and suspects in the 2016-2017 investigations (including Gen. Flynn)
    — Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) June 19, 2018
    Don't do many predictions, but here goes: the Flynn 302 is a composite 302. The source materials were not just edited but deleted prior to Flynn's prosecution.

    There is precedent for this: Mueller's #2 Weissmann destroyed 302s and drafts/notes.

    cc @paulsperry_ @TheLastRefuge2 pic.twitter.com/FF8uk0Mub2
    — Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) June 7, 2018


    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...x-months-later
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  18. #555
    More questions were raised than answered Friday in the Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigation. Most reporting has it wrong.
    Judge Emmett Sullivan had ordered Mueller to file FBI interview notes in the prosecution of Michael Flynn. Sullivan is scheduled to decide on a sentence for Flynn’s guilty plea on December 18 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
    Mueller’s office filed a “Government’s Reply To Defendant’s Memorandum In Aid Of Sentencing” on December 14, 2018. That covering transmittal is pure rhetoric.
    As a criminal defense attorney, let me explain that those statements by Mueller attorneys Brandon Van Grack and Zainab Ahmad are spin, essentially a closing argument. These are only the prosecutors’ opinions. Yet Trump critics like Fox News’ Shepard Smith were reading that document on air as if it were evidence.


    What really counts is two documents that Sullivan ordered the FBI to cough up. Exhibit A and Exhibit B raise serious questions. Both are heavily redacted, but the context of the blacked-out sections suggests that there is “no there there.”

    Exhibit A is a very superficial January 24, 2017, memo to the file from when Peter Strzok and another, unnamed FBI agent interviewed Trump’s incoming National Security Adviser Flynn. The interview was at the direction of Andrew McCabe. It is reported that McCabe wrote Exhibit A. Both Strzok and McCabe are Trump haters and coup plotters as demonstrated by their text messages and emails. McCabe’s wife took over $700,000 from Friends of Hillary to run as a Democrat in Virginia for the State Senate.
    As an attorney, I believe that nothing in Exhibit A would allow Judge Sullivan to sustain a criminal conviction of Flynn under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 for lying to the FBI. We don’t know what is blacked out, but the context around those redactions leave it improbable that any lie by Flynn is recorded in those interview notes.
    Exhibit B is a formal FBI Form FD-302 from August 22, 2017, of an interview with Peter Strzok This is not a Form 302 of an interview with Michael Flynn. This is an interview taken of Peter Strzok. The August 22, 2017, FD-302 starts out “(U/FOUO) FBI Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) Peter P. Strzok was interviewed in his office in the Special Counsel’s office in Washington D.C.”
    Inside of Exhibit B, the August 22, 2017, Form 302 states that Peter Strzok wrote a different Form 302 earlier about the January 24, 2017, interview with Flynn.
    That earlier Form 302 is missing. Exhibit A does not appear to be a Form 302. It does not appear to contain anything that would support a conviction that Flynn had said anything to the FBI that was untrue. The missing earlier Form FD-302 would be enough for Judge Sullivan to throw out Mueller’s case against Flynn entirely.


    Exhibit B cannot be reliable enough to support a conviction of Flynn under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. The Special Counsel’s office was interviewing the FBI agent plotting with Andrew McCabe, Linda Page, apparently Rod Rosenstein, and others to overthrow the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
    Exhibit B is also heavily redacted. (Judge Sullivan will have the full, unredacted version.) But, again, the visible portions surrounding the redactions make it improbable that anything supports a conviction of Flynn.
    Judge Sullivan’s unusual order telegraphed that Sullivan has doubts about the legal validity of Mueller’s prosecution of Flynn. He has a history of questioning prosecutors. He threw out the 2008 prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens for similar reasons, in USA v Theodore F. Stevens, No. 1:08-CR-00231-EGS (Docket No. 257, December 22, 2018); Anna Stolley Persky, “A Cautionary Tale: The Ted Stevens Prosecution,” republished in Washington Lawyer, October 2009.
    Judge Sullivan will not be taking sides for or against Trump or carry water for Flynn. For Sullivan, if prosecutors will abuse the rights of the powerful and well-connected when everyone is watching, how will prosecutors trample on the rights of the poor and unnoticed defendants. This is a crusade of honor for Sullivan. Sullivan comes from a time when judges were actually judges. Sullivan is likely to throw out Flynn’s conviction to restrain out-of-control prosecutors in general, not because he cares about Flynn in particular. Even though Flynn pleaded guilty, a judge still has some responsibility to ensure that a law was actually broken, a plea is fair, and procedures were not abused.

    More at: https://bigleaguepolitics.com/robert...n-guilty-plea/
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  19. #556

    Mueller Team Scrubbed Peter Strzok’s Texts Before Giving Phone to Inspector General

    https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...ector-general/



    The Office of the Special Counsel deleted text messages from the iPhone of fired FBI agent Peter Strzok before turning it over to the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG), according to a report released by the federal watchdog.
    On Thursday, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report stating thousands of text messages exchanged between Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page could not be recovered after Mueller’s team wiped clean the phones it had issued them.



    “SCO’s Records Officer told the OIG that as part of the office’s records retention procedure, the officer reviewed Strzok’s DOJ issued iPhone after he returned it to the SCO and determined it contained no substantive text messages,” the watchdog report reads. As Conservative Review national security reporter Jordan Schachtel first discovered, the OIG said Strzok’s cell phone was “reset to factory settings,” deleting all data stored on the device.

    The federal watchdog said in the report it found “no discernible patterns” about the content of thousands of messages the FBI was able to recover between Strzok and Page. Both have been part of Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

    Strzok and Page testified before Congress this summer, and the former FBI agent admitted that he had not turned over all of his communications with Page to the Inspector General from his personal phone, even though their recovered conversations showed the two suggesting they move to apps like iMessage or Gmail. Strzok told outgoing Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) that it is a “safe assumption” that he sent messages to Page from his personal phone that were similar in nature to the widely-publicized messages attacking Trump supporters. He told House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that he himself determined which messages on that phone were “relevant to FBI business” that the Inspector General could review.

    At that time of their exchanges, the FBI was investigating whether former secretary of state and then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton improperly used a private email account while she was Secretary of State. Strzok, a senior counterintelligence agent, was assigned to the case, as was Page. Reports claimed the two were romantically involved during this time. Strzok was ultimately fired after anti-Trump text messages between him and Page were discovered by the special counsel.

    Thursday’s report said the FBI used special software to collect more than 20,000 text messages from the pair’s phones, but not all were sent between Strzok and Page. Investigators have already released some of the controversial texts, including a message from Strzok saying he would “stop” President Donald Trump from winning the election.

    Missing text messages from the pair’s iPhones, though, continue to elude the FBI.

    Early this year, the Office of the Inspector General contacted Verizon Wireless to determine if the carrier retains old text messages. Verizon said messages are retained for up to seven days after they are sent, and then erased. The missing messages in question were much older than a week by that time and Verizon no longer had them.

  20. #557
    The Justice Department's internal watchdog revealed on Thursday that special counsel Robert Mueller's office scrubbed all of the data from FBI agent Peter Strzok's iPhone, while his FBI mistress Lisa Page's phone had been scrubbed by a different department, according to a comprehensive report by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released on Thursday.

    After Strzok was kicked off the special counsel investigation following the discovery of anti-Trump text messages between he and Page, his Mueller's Records Officer scrubbed Strzok's iPhone after determining "it contained no substantive text messages," reports the Conservative Review's Jordan Schachtel.
    So Mueller's team wiped ALL of the data off of Peter Strzok's iPhone after determining "it contained no substantive text messages." Given what we know about Strzok, this smells like quite the coverup. Time for Congress to step in?https://t.co/mOgpBbDVO4 pic.twitter.com/9w2mEPK64C
    — Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) December 13, 2018
    Mueller's team was unable to locate Page's iPhone, however the DOJ's Justice Management Division (JMD) similarly scrubbed her phone - resetting it to factory settings.
    I'm sure you're all super shocked to find out that Lisa Page's phone was also scrubbed pic.twitter.com/NWV9GQbBTc
    — Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) December 13, 2018
    * Strzok texts he'll "stop Trump"
    * Strzok texts that NYT is upset about WaPo scoop.
    * Strzok texts Page re "insurance policy"
    * Mueller then smashes their phones with a virtual hammer.

    Go on how you're concerned about corruption, obstruction of justice, and collusion. https://t.co/6267rsEahS
    — Razor (@hale_razor) December 13, 2018
    Meanwhile, the OIG recovered approximately newly found 19,000 Strzok-Page texts from their Galaxy S5 phones. The messages span a "gap" in text messages between December 15, 2016 and May 17, 2017.
    OIG digital forensic examiners used forensic tools to recover thousands of text messages from these devices, including many outside the period of collection tool failure (December 15, 20 I 6 to May 17, 2017) and many that Strzok and Page had with persons other than each other. Approximately 9,311 text messages that were sent or received during the period of collection tool failure were recovered from Strzok's S5 phone, of which approximately 8,358 were sent to or received from Page. Approximately 10,760 text messages that were sent or received during the period of collection tool failure were recovered from Page's S5 phone, of which approximately 9,717 were sent to or received from Strzok. Thus, many of the text messages recovered from Strzok's S5 were also recovered from Page's S5. However, some of the Strzok-Page text messages were only recovered from Strzok's phone while others were only recovered from Page's phone. -OIG Report
    Wow, 19,000 Texts between Lisa Page and her lover, Peter S of the FBI, in charge of the Russia Hoax, were just reported as being wiped clean and gone. Such a big story that will never be covered by the Fake News. Witch Hunt!
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 15, 2018
    Thousands of text messages between Strzok and Page were recovered by the OIG, many indicating that both agents in charge of investigating Donald Trump absolutely hate him.

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...w-fbi-lovebird
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  21. #558
    On Thursday, FBI Supervisory Agent Jeff Danik told SaraACarter.com that Sullivan must also request all the communications between the two agents, as well as their supervisors around the August 2017 time-frame in order to get a complete and accurate picture of what transpired. Danik, who is an expert in FBI policy, says it is imperative that Sullivan also request “the workflow chart, which would show one-hundred percent, when the 302s were created when they were sent to a supervisor and who approved them.”
    He stressed, “the bureau policy – the absolute FBI policy – is that the notes must be placed in the system in a 1-A file within five days of the interview.” Danik said that the handwritten notes get placed into the FBI Sentinel System, which is the FBI’s main record keeping system. “Anything beyond five business days is a problem, eight months is a disaster,” he added.
    In the redacted 302 report Strzok and Pientka said they “both had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying.” Information that Flynn was not lying was first published and reported by SaraACarter.com.
    Flynn was found guilty by Mueller on one count of lying to the FBI. Supporters of Flynn have questioned Mueller’s tactics in getting the retired three-star general to plead guilty to this one count of lying.
    In the report, the two agents describe Flynn as being very open and noted said Flynn “clearly saw the FBI agents as allies.” Flynn is described as discussing a variety of “subjects.” The report includes his openness regarding Trump’s “knack for interior design,” the hotels he stayed at during his campaign, as well as other issues.
    “Flynn was so talkative, and had so much time for them, that Strzok wondered if the national security adviser did not have more important things to do than have a such a relaxed, non-pertinent discussion with them,” it said.
    The documents turned over by Mueller also reveal that other FBI personnel “later argued about the FBI’s decision to interview Flynn.”


    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...k-he-was-lying
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  22. #559
    Judicial Watch today released two sets of heavily redacted State Department documents, 38 pages and 48 pages, showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN).
    Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a June 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department after it failed to respond to a February 2018 request seeking records of the Obama State Department’s last-minute efforts to share classified information about Russia election interference issues with Democratic Senator Ben Cardin (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-01381)).
    The documents reveal the Obama State Department urgently gathering classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Donald Trump taking office.

    More at: https://www.infowars.com/judicial-wa...-inauguration/
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  23. #560
    Frustrated outgoing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) has called for the creation of a 'transparency office' attached to the White House that would be dedicated to reviewing and declassifying information that should be in the public sphere, reports the Washington Examiner.
    "Our investigation is essentially over. We have everything that we need. What we're lacking now is that we're lacking the declassification by the president," Nunes told Fox News on Sunday while discussing his panel's investigation into the DOJ and FBI handling of the Russia probe.
    "For various reasons, the president or his staff doesn't want to do it. Therefore, I think it's important if the president doesn't want his hands on it, we have to have somebody, some office, that's going to look at all of these issues and all of these documents that need to be declassified," said Nunes. "I'm going to be working with my colleagues to work on and send some example over to the president of a transparency type of office, so that the Congress, the American people, others can put in requests of documents or issues that they want declassified. That way the president doesn't have to take this full burden on and the Congress has somewhere where we can go to try to avoid the swamp creatures from getting involved and ensuring that the American public is kept in the dark."

    "We need to make sure that there's light. I always say that sunlight is the best disinfectant in Washington," said Nunes. "The more that we can get declassified, I think, the better. And I think an easy way to do it is to create an office that actually just works directly under the White House that specializes in evaluating this documentation and errs on the side of the more sunlight the better to make sure that everything we want declassified gets declassified."


    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...ssia-documents
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  25. #561
    Former UK spy Christopher Steele admitted in a London court that he was hired to help Hillary Clinton contest the results of the 2016 election in case Trump won, according to the Washington Times.

    Steele assembled an anti-Trump "dossier" of opposition research investigative firm Fusion GPS, which was in turn hired by DNC law firm Perkins Coie LLP. The document used "a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure," and "a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin," according to Vanity Fair. In other words, Hillary Clinton - through Steele and other intermediaries - was working with Russians against Donald Trump.
    He said the law firm Perkins Coie wanted to be in a position to contest the results based on evidence he unearthed on the Trump campaign conspiring with Moscow on election interference.
    His scenario is contained in a sealed Aug. 2 declaration in a defamation law suit brought by three Russian bankers in London. The trio’s American attorneys filed his answers Tuesday in a libel lawsuit in Washington against the investigative firm Fusion GPS, which handled the former British intelligence officer.
    In an answer to interrogatories, Mr. Steele wrote: “Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election.
    “Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as ‘Hillary for America’) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of that election.” -Washington Times
    During the election, Clinton told voters that Donald Trump would "threaten democracy" if he didn't promise to accept the results of the 2016 election - after Trump suggested he might not accept the results of a "rigged" contest.

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-2016-election
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  26. #562
    Having initially snubbed Judge Emmet Sullivan's order to release the original 302 report from the Michael Flynn interrogation in January 2017, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has finally produced the heavily redacted document, just hours before sentencing is due to be handed down.

    The memo - in full below - details then-national security adviser Michael Flynn's interview with FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka, and shows Flynn was repeatedly asked about his contacts with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and in each instance, Flynn denied (or did not recall) any such conversations.
    The agents had transcripts of Flynn's phone calls to Russian Ambassador Kislyak, thus showing Flynn to be lying.
    Flynn pleaded guilty guilty last December to lying to the FBI agents about those conversations with Kislyak.
    The redactions in the document seem oddly placed but otherwise, there is nothing remarkable about the content..

    Aside from perhaps Flynn's incredulity at the media attention...

    Flynn is set to be sentenced in that federal court on Tuesday.
    Of course, as Christina Laila notes, the real crime is that Flynn was unmasked during his phone calls to Kislyak and his calls were illegally leaked by a senior Obama official to the Washington Post.
    * * *

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...eve-sentencing
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  27. #563
    Editorial Note: The Forensicator recently published a report, titled “Guccifer 2 Returns To The East Coast.” Forensicator provided the following introduction to his latest findings, reproduced here with the permission of the author.

    In this post, we announce a new finding that confirms our previous work and is the basis for an update that we recently made to Guccifer 2’s Russian Breadcrumbs. In our original publication of that report, we posited that there were indications of a GMT+4 timezone offset (legacy Moscow DST) in a batch of files that Guccifer 2 posted on July 6, 2016. At the time, we viewed that as a “Russian breadcrumb” that Guccifer 2 intentionally planted.

    Now, based on new information, we have revised that conclusion: The timezone offset was in fact GMT-4 (US Eastern DST). Here, we will describe how we arrived at this new, surprising conclusion and relate it to our prior work.
    A month/so after publication, Stephen McIntyre (@ClimateAudit) replicated our analysis. He ran a few experiments and found an error in our original conclusion.

    We mistakenly interpreted the last modified time that LibreOffice wrote as “2015-08-25T23:07:00Z” as a GMT time value. Typically, the trailing “Z” means “Zulu Time“, but in this case, LibreOffice incorrectly added the “Z”. McIntyre’s tests confirm that LibreOffice records the “last modified” time as local time (not GMT). The following section describes the method that we used to determine the timezone offset in force when the document was saved.
    LibreOffice Leaks the Time Zone Offset in Force when a Document was Last Written
    Modern Microsoft Office documents are generally a collection of XML files and image files. This collection of files is packaged as a Zip file. LibreOffice can save documents in a Microsoft Office compatible format, but its file format differs in two important details: (1) the GMT time that the file was saved is recorded in the Zip file components that make up the final document and (2) the document internal last saved time is recorded as local time (unlike Microsoft Word, which records it as a GMT [UTC] value).
    If we open up a document saved by Microsoft Office using the modern Office file format (.docx or .xlsx) as a Zip file, we see something like the following.

    LibreOffice, as shown below, will record the GMT time that the document components were saved. This time will display as the same value independent of the time zone in force when the Zip file metadata is viewed.

    For documents saved by LibreOffice we can compare the local “last saved” time recorded in the document’s properties with the GMT time value recorded inside the document (when viewed as a Zip file). We demonstrate this derivation using the file named potus-briefing-05-18-16_as-edits.docx that Guccifer 2 changed using LibreOfficeand then uploaded to his blog site on July 6, 2016 (along with several other files).

    Above, we calculate a time zone offset of GMT-4 (EDT) was in force, by subtracting the last saved time expressed in GMT (2016-07-06 17:10:58) from the last saved time expressed as local time (2016-07-06 13:10:57).
    We’ve Been Here Before
    The Eastern timezone setting found in Guccifer 2’s documents published on July 6, 2016 is significant, because as we showed in Guccifer 2.0 NGP/Van Metadata Analysis, Guccifer 2 was likely on the East Coast the previous day, when he collected the DNC-related files found in the ngpvan.7z Zip file. Also, recall that Guccifer 2 was likely on the East Coast a couple of months later on September 1, 2016 when he built the final ngpvan.7z file.
    We believe that in all three cases Guccifer 2 was unlikely to anticipate that this Eastern timezone setting could be derived from the metadata of the documents that he published. However, one vocal critic with significant media reach objected to our East Coast finding as it related to our analysis of the ngpvan.7z file. This critic concluded instead that Guccifer 2 deliberately planted that clue to implicate a DNC worker who would die under suspicious circumstances a few days later on July 10, 2016.
    Further, this critic accused the Forensicator (and Adam Carter) of using this finding to amplify the impact of Forensicator’s report in an effort to spread disinformation. He implied that Forensicator’s report was supplied by Russian operatives via a so-called “tip-off file.” The Forensicator addresses those baseless criticisms and accusations in The Campbell Conspiracy.
    Now, we have this additional East Coast indication, which appears just one day after the ngpvan.7z files were collected. This new East Coast indication is found in a completely different group of files that Guccifer 2 published on his blog site. Further, this East Coast finding has its own unique and equally unlikely method of derivation.
    If we apply our critic’s logic, what do we now conclude? That Guccifer 2 also deliberately planted this new East Coast indication? To what end?
    We wonder: Will this new evidence compel our out-spoken critic to retract his unsubstantiated claims and accusations?
    Closing Thought



    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...rns-east-coast
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  28. #564
    The General Michael Flynn sentencing memo includes three different contradictory versions of a January 24, 2017 phone conversation between Flynn and former FBI official Andrew McCabe.

    Obviously, McCabe calling Flynn would indicate that Flynn was improperly targeted and “set up” by the FBI. (READ: Here’s How Peter Strzok Set Up General Flynn).
    The world-renowned researcher D3M0 gave Big League Politics the exclusive story, sourced from the General Michael Flynn sentencing memo from U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.


    “Buried in the Flynn sentencing memo from Special Counsel Mueller we find a contradiction on who called who to set up the fateful Flynn interview,” D3M0 told BLP.

    “There are 3 documents stating who called whom. Where we have Flynn saying he was called by McCabe & then McCabe saying Flynn called him. But the documents clearly show that it was in fact McCabe who called Flynn, The obvious question being why would McCabe lie and say that Flynn called him?,” D3M0 said.
    Here are the 3 different documents with the 3 different versions of events:
    Here is version number one: McCabe called Flynn.

    Here is version number two: McCabe called Flynn, but at a different time.



    Then there is this version: Flynn called McCabe.



    More at: https://bigleaguepolitics.com/flynn-...be-phone-call/
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  29. #565
    BuzzFeed was dealt a major blow in court on Tuesday, after a Judge decided that a Russian internet entrepreneur named in the infamous "Steele Dossier" is not a public figure.

    The decision by Judge Ursula Ungaro means that Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev, who sued BuzzFeed last year for defamation, has to prove a much lower standard of evidence against the media outlet.
    Public figures typically need to be able to prove the more demanding standard of "actual malice" when bringing a libel suit, while nonpublic figures only need to prove negligence, according to Politico.
    BuzzFeed spokesman Matt Mittenthal expressed disappointment in the decision, but he stressed that the media company is advancing several other legal arguments about why it was justified in its decision to publish the dossier former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele compiled about alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia. -Politico
    BuzzFeed's Mittenthal said that the ruling does not change the fact that the dossier was given legitimacy due to the fact that both Trump and President Obama were briefed on it, and was under "active and ongoing investigation" by the FBI.
    "While we disagree with this narrow opinion, it pertains only to one defense of our decision to publish the Steele Dossier, and has no bearing on the primary rationale: that the Dossier was the subject of official action by our government, briefed to two consecutive presidents, and under active and ongoing investigation by the FBI," said Mittenthal.
    BuzzFeed argued that public relations efforts by Gubarev - including a quote in a November 2016 Bloomberg article about allegations of clandestine server connections between Trump Tower and Russia's Alfa Bank - rendered him a public figure. The Russian businessman also hired a PR firm related to that allegation.
    The Judge, however, was not convinced.
    "Plaintiffs’ public involvement in cybersecurity and cybercrime issues, therefore, is not germane unless it is tied to Russian interference with the election. And, with the exception of Gubarev’s comments published in Bloomberg, they are not," she wrote in her opinion. "Because Plaintiffs were only tangential participants in the controversy, they are not limited public figures."
    Gubarev filed the suit against BuzzFeed in February 2017, claiming that the publication of the unverified Steele Dossier damaged his reputation along with that of his companies. The dossier claimed that Gubarev's company conducted hacking operations on behalf of a Russian spy agency against various Democrats during the 2016 US election.

    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...court-decision
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  30. #566
    Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said Friday that his agency has not found any evidence of any direct interference in the midterm elections.Coats said he has submitted a required report to President Donald Trump that says the intelligence community has not uncovered any compromise of election infrastructure that would have disrupted balloting or changed results.

    More at: https://news.yahoo.com/us-report-fin...-politics.html
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  31. #567
    A company owned by a foreign government which appears to be locked in a fierce battle with Special Counsel Robert Mueller has taken their case to the Supreme Court, according to a new legal filing presented Saturday to Chief Justice John Roberts.

    The unidentified firm has asked the Supreme Court to block Mueller from obtaining records through a subpoena after a federal appeals court turned down the company's effort to block the court ordered release of documents.
    The identity of the firm and the foreign country at issue remain closely guarded secrets, but POLITICO first reported earlier this year that the dispute appeared to involve Mueller’s prosecutors. A POLITICO reporter was in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals clerk’s office in October when a person connected to the appeal arrived to request a copy of the special counsel’s latest filing in the case.
    When the case was argued at the D.C. Circuit last week, the courtroom was closed to the public. Court personnel went to unusual lengths to preserve the secrecy, ordering journalists to leave the floor where lawyers were presenting their positions. -Politico
    The court's public docket has offered few clues - containing no information on the parties or their attorneys. Tuesday, however, a three-page order revealed that the witness fighting the subpoena is a corporation owned by a foreign state.
    The firm's argument that its status as an extension of a foreign government made it immune from subpoenas was rejected by a three-judge DC Circuit panel, while the judges were also unpersuaded by the state-owned company's claims that complying with the subpoena would violate laws in their home country.


    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...-supreme-court
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  32. #568
    Giuliani: Mueller Must Be Investigated For Destruction Of FBI Evidence

    "Mueller should be investigated for destruction of evidence for allowing those text messages from Strzok to be erased, messages that would show the state of mind and tactics of his lead anti-Trump FBI agent at the start of his probe," said Giuliani.



    Last edited by AZJoe; 12-27-2018 at 02:35 PM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.



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  34. #569

    Are the Investigations the Cover-Up?

    https://www.americanthinker.com/arti...e_coverup.html

    December 26, 2018

    Those of us who have been paying attention know that serious crimes were committed at the highest levels of government in an attempt to exonerate Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump. There was collusion between government agencies, including collusion with foreign agents, to illegally influence the 2016 Presidential election. There is enough evidence on the table to be confident of these claims.

    And those of us who care about rule of law, who want to see justice done to the criminals in this conspiracy, have been waiting for years to see that happen. We hear that these serious matters are being investigated. We hear that there are whistleblowers inside the government who want to come forward and expose the corruption. We hear that there are many, many more documents which will substantiate our worst fears about one of the greatest scandals in the history of our country.

    We have been assured that there are several investigations looking into the various aspect of this abuse of power. Inspector General Michael Horowitz, prosecutor John Huber, and others are looking into the corruption. Mueller is supposedly tasked with exposing foreign influence on the Presidential election.

    But what if the ‘investigations’ are really the cover-up? What if the investigations are carefully structured to protect criminal actions rather than expose them? What if the investigations are actually being used to hide evidence from the citizenry?

    Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe and others discussed the need for an “insurance policy” in case Trump won. Was this “insurance policy” intended to protect deep-state criminals from exposure? Mueller’s role is not to investigate collusion with foreign agents, or he would be investigating Christopher Steele and his Russian sources, along with the foreigners who worked with our government to infiltrate the Trump campaign. He would investigate the illegal funding of Steele’s lies and how the lies were fed to the public by ‘bad cops’ and complicit media. This is obviously not the goal of Mueller’s team.

    Mueller’s key role is to have nearly absolute control over what information is released to investigators or the public. Mueller determines what Horowitz and Huber can see. Mueller can hide anything he wants by claiming that release of the information would hinder his ‘investigation’. He has given Rod Rosenstein a list of lines of inquiry that will not be allowed. Rosenstein, who volunteered to be part of the soft coup, is happy to comply. We have witnessed Rosenstein repeatedly refuse to turn over documents to Congress, flagrantly obstructing its oversight role.

    What is the most effective way to hide the truth and protect the deep-state criminals? It’s the never-ending Mueller investigation. Sure, Mueller’s team is still in the business of promoting the Trump-Russia fiction, but the most important role of this ‘investigation’ may be to obstruct any real investigation.

    Conspiracy theories become conspiracy facts when enough evidence piles up to support the theory. Consider this evidence, starting before the election:

    • Comey wrote a letter exonerating Hillary from her very intentional crimes long before she or key witnesses were interviewed.
    • Hillary’s key co-conspirators were given immunity, allowed to share attorneys, sit in on each other’s depositions, and even destroy evidence. This was a sham investigation.
    • Hillary’s influence peddling through the Clinton Foundation was effectively swept under the rug. The Clintons enriched themselves by selling future favors, often to foreign entities. The foundation has been called “The Biggest Charity Fraud Ever”.
    • The Trump-Russia collusion narrative was developed as part of the effort to undermine Trump. It was not started by any actionable intelligence. Spies were placed in the Trump campaign to aid the false narrative and to allow further illicit intelligence gathering.
    • Spying on the Trump campaign was authorized by presenting fraudulent, hearsay evidence to FISA Court judges. This criminal act led to many other criminal acts including rampant “unmasking” of American citizens associated with Trump. Comey and Rosenstein both played roles in FISA abuse. White House officials did much of the unmasking.
    • On September 28, 2016, Peter Strzok texted Lisa Page that “hundreds of thousands” of email messages from Anthony Weiner’s computer had been turned over to the FBI by U.S. Attorneys who were conducting an investigation into Weiner’s sex crimes. This was a treasure trove of information about Huma and Hillary. The FBI immediately hid the information for a month while they figured out how to whitewash it to protect Hillary. The bomb-control team successfully defused another bomb. Surely, they expected a future reward from President H.R. Clinton.


    Inspector General Horowitz’s June report had the goal of soft-peddling criminal behavior. The report said that some unfortunate things were done, but there was no reason to think that bias played a key role in important decisions. It did not find fault with things like granting immunity to the man who lied to the FBI and destroyed Hillary’s illegal server. As we have learned, lying to the FBI can be fine, depending on who does the lying. Destroying subpoenaed evidence is okay too, at times.

    Horowitz’ public statement about his toothless report was followed by FBI Director Christopher Wray telling us not to worry about a thing because he intended to schedule a day when FBI agents would have a meeting to discuss bias. Okay then -- I guess that takes care of it.

    Last year, when members of Congress were rightly frustrated about evidence being hidden, there were increasing calls for a special prosecutor to investigate surveillance abuses by the Obama administration, the shady Uranium One deal, and the Clinton Foundation’s influence peddling. The idea of appointing a truly independent prosecutor was thwarted by Jeff Sessions, who appointed a career insider to do the investigation instead. Sessions promised that an Obama holdover in Utah, John Huber, would do a “full, complete and objective evaluation of these matters.”

    At this point, there is every reason to believe that the purpose of Huber’s investigation is to hide the truth, not to find it; to protect the criminals, not to charge them. The key witnesses in each of the matters under investigation have not even been contacted. It appears that no grand juries have been empaneled. Tom Fitton, of Judicial Watch says, “Huber wasn’t tapped to investigate anything”, he was just “a distraction”.

    What we are witnessing here is a carefully planned and orchestrated cover-up of a series of very serious crimes. The deep swamp is pretending to investigate the deep swamp.

    This cover-up would not be possible if the mainstream media were honest and aggressive fact-finders, but they actually function as a branch of the Democratic Party. The cover-up would fail if Republicans were unified in absolutely demanding to see all the evidence that is currently being hidden, but Republican ‘leaders’ do not unify and fight hard for anything. They appear to be comfortable with losing this battle.

    Victors write the accepted history of events. It is possible that the story here will be that good men like Strzok, Comey, Rosenstein, and Mueller protected America from a vast right-wing conspiracy. Donald Trump, the victim of most of the crimes, will be portrayed as the villain.


  35. #570

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